Systemic Crisis

A few years ago, hundreds of thousands of people were hitting the streets in support of ambitious climate targets. Today, the main protesters are groups who are disadvantaged by these policies: farmers, commuters, property owners. The project of an ecological transformation seems to have run out of steam.

Philipp Staab views this as the result of a profound systemic crisis. The prospect of modernisation no longer produces legitimacy. Many citizens see the state’s attempt to intervene in the climate crisis as heavy-handed and invasive. Increasingly, their response to this takes the form of open rejection not just of climate change but also fundamental values of liberal democracy. »Green progress«, according to Staab, has itself become a source of instability. The promise of a brighter future has made way for a utopia of stagnation.